Who Needs Sleep?

I knew it was coming. I knew that with the arrival of a baby came also the disappearance of sleep. I just had no idea how much I would miss sleep. But I also had no idea how little sleep a person truly needs to function... Turns out, you don't really need that much to get through the day!

So last week we decided to start the process of moving Kate to her crib. Up until this point, she had been sleeping in her bassinet in our room. I liked it this way. I could have left things this way forever. But, she had to inevitably start sleeping in her crib eventually and I knew I'd rather start that sleepless transition before I go back to work in a few weeks.

Kate has never been a great sleeper. She fights sleep to the end. It's almost like she's afraid she's going to miss something (she gets that from her dad). In her bassinet, she was sleeping 3-4 hours at a time. Then we moved her to her crib... She'd start the night sleeping in there for 3 hours at first... Then 2 hours... Then 1... Then even less than one hour at a time. Eek. I was exhausted. We then started her out in her crib each night, but if she was fighting it too much we would just move her back to her bassinet. I couldn't survive on that amount of sleep... Well, I could but it would not have been pretty.

We were beginning to get desperate so we trekked over to Babies 'R' Us in search of a missing link. We bought a mobile and a Halo swaddler (recommended by our dear friend, Alisa). Turns out, the Halo swaddler WAS the missing link! Before, we would swaddle Kate's arms every night in a blanket, but she would always break free, her hands would hit her face and she would wake herself up over and over again. But this swaddler is genius! It gives her legs plenty of room to kick but also keeps her arms nice and snug. And she (usually) cannot break her arms out so she sleeps peacefully for longer periods now. Thank goodness! Last night she still woke up every few hours to eat, but she slept in her crib until 7 am! So proud of my sweet girl!